


The Place Next to Me

by GrandOptimist



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Happy Ending, Smut, kastle - Freeform, kinda slow burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 15:28:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7646617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrandOptimist/pseuds/GrandOptimist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What do you need?” she asks him, earnestly, with her hand on his wrist. His face twitches, almost like he wants to smile, but he just looks at her unevenly, eyes dark and expression unreadable.</p><p>“I told you, Page,” he replies. “A place to stay.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Place Next to Me

It takes him four months to reappear in her life. Karen is surprised that he returns that early. She always assumed that she would be the one going to him, with her resolve weakened from hearing about him but never knowing if he walked away from a fight okay.

She assumed wrong, because a soft knock on her door wakes her up in the around midnight, scaring her out of a dreamless sleep. Her heart pounds, as she fumbles as quietly as she can manage, hand digging through her bedside table drawer in search for her .038. Her hand just wraps around the gun when she hears him, his low voice, calling to her from her front door.

“Karen?”

Stilling in her bed, she unconsciously relaxes her grip on her gun. Before she realizes what she is doing, she is out of her bed, the hand previously on the .038 now on the doorknob leading out of her studio apartment.

A quick breath escapes her before she rips open the door, and an irrational thought passes her mind.

_I made it up in my head. He’s not there. I am going crazy._

Her fear is unfounded, because when her blue eyes settle upon his dark ones, he cracks an almost-smile, a mere twitch of his lips that has her heart racing.

“Long time, no see, ma’am,” he says, without preamble.

Karen feels as if her heart is going to beat out of her chest, and she looks at him with her mouth open, feeling like an idiot and certain she looks the part.

“Y-you’re here?” She meant it as a statement, but it leaves her mouth as a question, as if she cannot fully comprehend that he—Frank Castle, the Punisher, the man who saved her and killed too many to count—is actually at her door, wearing his bulletproof vest, eerie white skull, and combat boots.

Frank just nods, and Karen realizes that it was an answer to the question she just asked. She opens the door wider, stepping aside as she shivers from the wintery air. She’s dressed only in a long, white t-shirt, and she looks at him apprehensively for his reaction. Frank does not seem to notice her attire. He walks into her apartment, an ambiguous duffle bag in one hand and a leash attached to his gray pit bull in the other. In her surprise that Frank was at her door, Karen did not even notice the panting dog covered in snowflakes.

The dog shakes a few feet inside before sniffing at her sofa. Frank barks an order at the dog—Barney—to stop, which the dog stills immediately with little more than a whine.

She closes the door, locking it more forcefully than normal, before asking, “What—what are you doing here?”

It comes out strangled, like Karen does not have enough air to breathe, and Frank winces at her tone. Part of her wants to apologize, but she holds back. Her previous words, from months back, come back to her.

_Dead to me._

He opens his mouth to speak several times, but closes it every time. He shuffles his feet from the spot he’s taken in her kitchen, and he drops the duffle bag to run a hand along his buzzed hair, slightly longer than when Karen had last seen him. Unnecessarily, she decides that she likes his hair longer.

The silence drags on so long that Barney lies down, resting his head against his large paws, before sighing. Karen sees the humor in the sigh, and almost nods her head at the dog, when Frank starts to speak.

“I, uh,” he begins, “I need a place to stay, ma’am.”

She almost scoffs. Almost. She knows before he even finishes his sentence that she will help him. No matter what he says. That fact does not stop her from staring at him, despite the way her heart beats whenever their eyes meet.

With a nod, she goes to the chest at the foot of her bed and retrieves a blanket for him before pulling a pillow off her bed for him. He takes her actions as a “yes” and picks up his dropped duffle bag to place it by the sofa, dropping his coat on the arm of the chair closet to the front door.

They do not speak. After Karen hands him the bedding, she takes a light seat on her bed, pulling her legs to her chest, and watches him as he unpacks a couple guns from his bag and places them on her coffee table without ceremony before walking over to her kitchen table. He sits down on one of the white chairs, legs spread wide, with elbows on his knees, looking down at the light brown flooring.

She looks at him, takes in the new bruising, the rough shadow of his facial hair, and the purse of his lips. Though he is not looking at her, she can see the bags under his dark eyes, the tiredness of his face, and her heart burns with something that she cannot name.

“What are you doing to yourself, Frank?” she mutters, holding his gaze when he looks at her. “You look-”

“Like shit,” he cuts her off. “Yeah, I know.” A sigh, followed by a hard look from him. “That’s why I am here, Karen.”

That causes her to look down. Why would he come to her? She told him that if he continued killing that he was dead to her, and by the looks of him and the influx stories that _The Bulletin_ wrote about him, he clearly continued.

“You’re at my apartment because you look like shit?” she asks without thinking. The skepticism is clearly in her voice, and she is worried that she has offended him before he chuckles. It is deep in his throat, and her heart flutters and stomach pools at the sound.

Her face is red by the time he replies, “There you are, Page.” He shakes his head. “Never taking any of my bullshit.”

She doesn’t know how to respond to that, so she ignores it. “What do you want from me, Frank?” Her words are sharp, and she regrets them the moment they leave her.

It’s his turn to be quiet, and he stares at the ground as he ponders her question. From across her studio, Barney shifts to lie on his side, and Karen tries to think of something else to say.

“Frank,” she says quietly, “I don’t—I didn't mean for it to sound like that.”

“No, Page, I get it,” he says. “I am no good.”

He stands, making as if he is going to leave, but Karen is across the room, her hand on his arm, before he has a chance to get far. She turns him to look at her, and his eyes look everywhere but his face.

“What do you need?” she asks him, earnestly, with her hand on his wrist. His face twitches, almost like he wants to smile, but he just looks at her unevenly, eyes dark and expression unreadable.

“I told you, Page,” he replies. “A place to stay.”

* * *

This becomes a routine. He appears out of nowhere, only there is just weeks between and not months. They go back and forth, tiptoeing around each other after the first encounter.

She usually comes home to find him sitting on her sofa, styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand and food for both of them on her coffee table. They speak of mundane things, like her articles or whatever is on the television, but there is an underlying layer of tension, as if he wants to tell her something and he isn’t.

Frank never stays more than a couple days at a time, but she never calls him on it. He approached her claiming that he needed a place to stay, but he never stays long enough for he to consider her apartment _their_ apartment. Despite his lie, she finds herself wishing he stayed longer every time he leaves. Her heart aches in the weeks in-between their encounters, and she's flabbergasted to find that she has trouble sleeping whenever he is not there.

Whenever he reappears, she is grateful, and she finds herself doing things to make him smile. Sometimes she manages to get him to laugh, though those times are far and few between, but she finds that she does not care.

One day, he casually talks about buzzing his hair again as he wipes grease from his fingers with a rag.

“It’s getting long,” he says, staring out the small window in her kitchen that looks out on the street. “Don’t really have a reason to, uh, keep it long.”

Karen wants to say that the word "long" is a bit of a stretch when it comes to the length of his hair, but she cannot ignore that it almost sounds like he is asking her permission to cut it. She thinks back to the night that he reappeared in her life, of her thinking that she likes his hair longer, and Karen decides that, if he is asking her, she is going to give her honest opinion.

“Don’t cut it too short,” she replies after a moment, diligently petting Barney. A pause. “I like it longer.”

She holds her breath after she finishes speaking. It is a risk, telling him how she likes his hair, because she really has no say in what he does with his life. The last time she tried to prevent him from doing something, she didn’t hear from him for four months, and even though that was a very different situation, Karen cannot help her nerves.

He gives a short laugh, as if he is pleased with her answer, and says, “Yes, ma’am.”

Karen relaxes before noticing that her shoulders were tense.

* * *

It takes about two months, but eventually, she starts insisting that Barney just stay with her. It’s a demand that has him pausing at the sink, where he was washing his hands, which Frank seems to do a lot around her. Karen holds her breath, which she seems to do a lot around him, as he looks from his hands to her eyes.

“You know that you leave him alone more than you should,” she says, running her hands along Barney’s back. He wags his tail excitedly as she rubs behind his ears, and she laughs privately at the fact that she uses Barney as a way to avoid looking at Frank more often than not. “Plus, I feel safer when he’s here.”

Not completely the truth, but not completely a lie. Barney is only at her apartment when Frank is at her apartment, and she only truly feels safe when Frank is with her. But she’s not going to say that. She isn’t going to tell him that she wants Barney to stay because she knows that the dog will cause Frank to come around more often.

She’s desperate, but not that desperate.

Frank simply nods his head a moment later, grunting in agreement, and that’s when Karen acquires a dog.

* * *

Because of Barney, Karen can no longer pull all-nighters at the office as, miraculously, dogs need to eat regularly too, which is something Karen did not think about when offering to keep Barney full-time.

Ellison is the first to notice.

He catches her on her way out, and Karen is eager to leave. It’s been about a week since she’s seen Frank, and that’s usually when he comes back around. Her heart pounds with the possibility at seeing him on her couch or sleeping on her bed, but Ellison’s shit-eating grin makes her heart stop in its tracks.

“Have a hot date, Page?” he teases, toying with the plastic lid of his coffee cup. “Not that it’s any of my business. Only, it _is_ , considering that your articles are coming in less frequently.”

She scoffs at that. “You know that I turn in three articles a week, same as always.”

“Yes, yes, that’s true, _but_ you seem too happy, Page. Has to be a new— _friend_.”

For not the first time, Karen curses Ellison’s ability to see right through her. The fact that she is noticeably happier makes her worry, because if Ellison can see it, Frank might be able to.

Karen scrambles on what to say, so she simply blurts, “I got a dog.”

Ellison laughs at her panicked look and says, “Sure, Page,” before walking away, sipping at the coffee. “Tell the dog I said ‘hi’ when you get home. I’d like to meet ‘em sometime.”

Her face is bright red all the way home, so red that her cab driver asks her if she’s okay (to which she doesn’t know whether to respond ‘yes’ or ‘no’), but when she catches sight of Frank, bloody and beaten on her couch, all blood drains out of her face and she suddenly feels as if she is going to puke.

“Frank?” she asks, terror coloring her tone, because he is not moving, and Karen isn’t sure what she will do if he is dead. The very thought of him remaining lifeless on her cheerful, yellow sofa makes her blood run cold.

He groans meekly, and relief floods her, because a groan at least means that he’s breathing and cognizant enough to feel pain.

“Oh my god, Frank,” she whimpers, rushing to his side, gripping his hand in hers without thinking. The heat from his hand makes her feel less panicked, but it does not keep her from continuing with an alarmed, “Frank, talk to me. What do I need to do? What do you need from me?”

Lifting his head sluggishly, Frank’s eyes open haphazardly, as if the light from outside—Karen forgot to shut her door—is too bright for him. He focuses in on her, and he leans his head back against the arm of her sofa with a moan.

“Need to be patched up, Karen,” he mumbles through the pain. “Meds would be nice too.” There is humor in his words, and she relaxes slightly though she does not pull away. She only lets go when he squeezes her hand and murmurs for her to get his med-kit from his duffle bag.

She’s stitched him up before, but Karen has never seen him this bad. It takes her almost an hour to clean the blood off his face and torso. It was a fight to get him to move to take off his shirt so that she could dress the wound on his shoulder, and she is grateful she’s done when she stitches the last bit of skin of the bullet wound. Karen’s back aches from being in an awkward position for too long, her neck is strained from a long day work, and her hands are shaking from the fear that is reappearing after she went into autopilot mode. She barely has an enough energy to go shut and lock her front door.

While she is breaking down, Frank is returning to his normal self again, petting Barney with the hand attached to his good shoulder. Karen stumbles her way back over, standing next to him with a look that shows all that she feels, and his hand leaves the dog for Karen’s hand when he looks up and sees how shaken up she is.

It’s only when he starts to gently shush her that she figures out that she’s whimpering.

“Hey, hey, Page,” he says comfortingly, pulling her close as he stands to wrap his arm around her. She buries her head in his neck, which smells of gunpowder and blood, and lets out a small sob. “Karen, I’m here,” he says, as if that is supposed to cancel out the fact that he almost died. “I’m okay. Karen. _Karen_. Stop. Don’t—don’t cry for me.”

She wants to yell at him, snarl that she will cry over whoever she damn well pleases, but instead, her arms go around his neck, and before she can think about what she’s doing, her lips are against his.

They are warm, almost feverish, and that doesn’t surprise Karen in the slightest. Frank always been abnormally hot-blooded, and she’s teased him about it since she discovered it. What she doesn’t expect is the softness of his lips against her. Or the quiet, tortured moan that escapes him when he pulls her closer and kisses her back. His hand goes from her lower back to her neck, where it tangles in her blonde hair, and it’s Karen’s turn to moan when he moves his lips to her jaw.

“Page,” he murmurs against the underside of her chin.

She gasps at the feeling of his tongue against her skin, and suddenly it feels as if all the air in the room is gone. She’s suffocating on her desire for him, but it feels so good that she can’t find it within her to care.

Pulling his lips back to hers, they start to back up towards her bed, and Karen feels relieved that he follows her as he leans her onto the mattress. She is careful of his shoulder as she runs her hands down his bare chest. Her fingers find scars that she’s never noticed, indents of muscle, and soft yet hard skin that makes her blood boil.

Karen thinks back to all the men she’s kissed, all the men that she’s had on top of her, and she decides that they were all lacking. Nothing is as thrilling as having Frank palm her ass through her dark skinny jeans. Nothing is as exciting as having Frank run his hand from her bare foot all the way up to her thigh. Nothing is as worth it as having Frank groan as she rolls her hips against his.

“Frank,” she murmurs when he stops kissing her neck and places his head in the crook of her shoulder.

“We shouldn’t, Karen,” he whispers. “I’m no good for you.” His words contradict his actions, as he places open-mouth kisses against the flesh of her throat, and she can feel each word against her skin. “I don’t want to take advantage.”

She takes his good hand from her hip and places against her breast, holding it as he cups her through her shirt and bra. He moans, hiding his face against her shoulder again, and she says, “You aren’t taking advantage, Frank. I want this.”

“But you shouldn’t,” he murmurs quietly, squeezing her breast experimentally.

“But I _do_.” Her words are breathy, and she blushes at how she sounds.

Her words undo him, and the next moment, Frank is underneath her, his bad shoulder pillowed against the mattress. He stares up at her like a blind man seeing the sun for the first time, and Karen meets his gaze head-on as she starts to unbuckle his weapon belt and unzip his black cargo pants. His eyes turn dark—darker than she’s ever seen them—as she lays a finger against the bulge in his pants.

It’s almost like he’s challenging her. _Do it_ , he seems to say. _You have the control here_.

Karen almost cannot believe the sight in front of her. She has the Punisher on his back on her bed, with her hand in his pants. His eyes are closed now, and he breathes lightly as she moves her hand against him.

“Christ,” he mutters as she squeezes slightly, “d’ya just plan on teasin’ the hell outta me?”

His slurred words make her smile, and she answers with another squeeze, causing him to groan, which spurs her on. Her hand slips from his pants and to the hem of her shirt. When she pulls it off, face red at her brazenness, he sits up suddenly, his face so close to hers. His good hand is at the clip of her bra and suddenly it falls away.

She doesn’t know what sound she makes when he runs a finger against her nipple, but she’s sure that it would embarrass her. Nothing has made her feel this good before, and Karen is certain that nothing else ever would.

“Frank,” she whimpers, as she sees his head start to drop to her breast. Their eyes lock, and she can see a hint of something in his as his lips attach to the skin just shy of where she wants him. The sheer eroticness of his tongue swirling towards her nipple, which hardens from his breath, makes her eyes roll in the back of her head.

He makes a noise of discontentment when she looks away, and when she looks back, he gives her a look that seems to say, Do not look away.

Karen tries to obey to the best of her ability, but all self-control she has is gone when, minutes later, she is on her back, completely naked, with his mouth snaking down her stomach towards the apex of her thighs. His kisses bring her body’s temperature to new heights, nearly meeting his own, and Karen wonders if this is what it feels like to die as he attaches his lips to her clit.

There is no lead-in to Frank going down on her. He only flipped her onto her back a minute earlier and tore her pants off with an intent mouth on her skin. The men before him made a big production of eating her out, as if she should thank them, but Frank offers nothing but what he is—a man who enjoys pleasing his woman.

She comes embarrassingly quick, panting into her forearm as she attempts to quiet the loud moans that threaten to escape her, and Karen eventually has to pull his mouth from her.

“Too much,” she pants, blue eyes still unfocused from her last orgasm. “Come here.”

Frank moves back up her body with a satisfied smile on his face, and Karen kisses him harshly as she threads her fingers through his hair. She remembers vaguely that he still has his pants on as she starts to rut against him, hungry for more.

“Jesus, Karen,” he moans against her mouth, “no recovery time?”

She smiles at his joking tone, and it occurs to her that she’s never seen this part of Frank Castle before. She’s seen him smile, hurt, angry, worried, but never this. This joking contentment, and Karen can barely register the joy she feels before Frank starts to kick off his pants and boxers in one go.

Once his pants are off, all Karen can think about is how much she wants to fuck him, and the feeling seems mutual. Once his cock touches the wetness of her slit, everything goes to hell, and suddenly there is nothing but a warm, aching stretch within her. She stills at the feeling, letting her mouth drop open at the sensation of Frank within her.

“Hope you’re still into this, Page,” Frank mutters against her neck after she’s filled to the hilt, misinterpreting her silence.

If she was not so painfully aroused and full of him, Karen thinks she would have rolled her eyes, but the only answer she gives him is a suggestive, fulfilling roll of her hips and an intense kiss.

The kiss awakens something within Frank, because suddenly he is withdrawing from her and then slamming back. Karen swears she sees stars as he thrusts rhythmically, and the whole world fades, leaving only Frank. Her whole body is warm from him, from his body heat, from the pleasure he gives her. Every nerve is alight in her body, and her toes curl as he hitches her hips up off the bed, changing the angle of his thrusts.

Subconsciously, Karen knows that he is not going to last long, and her fingers move of their own accord as her hand moves to her clit and begins furiously swirling in time with Frank’s thrusts.

“Fuck,” he swears, looking to where their bodies are joined to watch her fingers, “fuck, that’s hot.”

She doesn’t notice his words, too busy wrapped in the fact that she is so close, and his cock is hitting her in just the right spot, a sensation that she’s never experienced before, but one that she is excited to feel again.

It takes a few more thrusts before Karen hits oblivion, her fingers, listless in her pleasure, replaced by his own. It’s torture, the overwhelming sensation of his fingertips on her clit, but she is helpless to resist it. She comes again before she registers what is going on, and Frank follows her with little more than a grunt.

When Karen becomes lucid again, Frank is on top of her, and she feels a warm wetness against her breast. Looking down, she sees nothing but red.

“Frank,” she whispers, not wanting to break the satisfying edge of the moment. He makes a noise for her to continue, and she says, “Frank, you pulled your stitches.”

He laughs lowly at that, and the movement causes him to move in her again. Her small gasp is overridden by his words.

“Fuck the stitches,” he says. “I just got laid by a leggy blonde who still has her panties around her ankles.” Embarrassment colors her cheeks when she moves her legs to discover that he’s right, but he kisses the blush away before laying his stubbled cheek against her. “You’ll take care of me and stitch me up again. You always do.”

The certainty in his words makes her smile, and she nods against him, finding that she agrees with him.

* * *

It takes her half as long to fix him up. He sits on her bed, wearing nothing but loose, flannel pants as she works on his shoulder. Her hands are steady, relaxed from being thoroughly fucked. Frank seems more willing to listen to her instruction, watching her with lazy eyes as she moves over him in nothing but one of his clean shirts that she found buried in her underwear drawer.

When she finishes, she wipes the small drip of blood running down his chest and smiles at him as if she had just made him dinner and not restitched a wound.

“Shirt looks good on you,” he jokes, leaning into the hand the touches his face. “Like that you’re wearing it.”

Karen smiles wider at him and replies cheekily, “Getting laid looks good on you.”

He laughs at that one. “I’m glad. Might encourage you to, uh, help me out on that one.”

Frank’s words are awkward, stilted in a way that is so genuine that Karen thinks she might cry. Here is the man who once thought he would die lonely, die with murderer attached to his name and his family forgotten, trying to flirt with her.

“Yeah,” she replies, pushing him back onto the bed gentle before climbing on him. She sits on the bulge that is reappearing in his pants and grins widely at the way his eyes widen. “It just might encourage me.”

* * *

She wakes up in in the middle of the night to find his arm chained around her waist. He radiates heat, and Karen is sure that she will wake up in the morning sweaty and gross, but she cannot find it in herself to move.

Barney lies at the foot of the bed, sleeping contently, and Frank lies behind her, pressed against her as he snores lightly into her ear. She turns her head to look at his face. There’s a bruise making its way onto his cheek, and his lower lips is more swollen than usual. Karen smiles softly at his face, and she snuggles back into his chest.

As she drifts off, the smile lingers on her face.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm pretty sure another author in the Kastle fandom named Frank's dog "Barney" but I couldn't remember if it was canon or not. Anyway, credit to Barney's name goes to the wonderful person who deserves it.
> 
> I hope that you guys enjoyed by fic. Leave me some kudos and/or some comments! I am thinking about adding on to it and making it a series or something like that. Let me know what you think!
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Also, here is a link to my tumblr! http://feminist-potatoes.tumblr.com


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